'Julian Little, of Bayer CropScience, said that the argument had changed: from whether GM technology is a good thing to what happens when the crop is grown commercially. He said: "It's not now about whether it's safe in itself, but how you manage it. That's a major shift." '

It certainly is given that the Health Committee of the Scottish Parliament has issued a highly critical report on GM crop safety within the last fortnight reflecting the strong concerns of amongst others the British Medical Association!

And don't miss this happy conjunction (item 2), "The first tobacco CEO to acknowledge smoking is addictive is offering a new cigarette made with genetically modified tobacco..."

And note the terrible price of extra-cheesy milk (in item 1):

"The cows were created by combining GM techniques with the cloning method used to produce Dolly the sheep. Out of 126 attempts, they produced just 11 calf clones, each one carrying the extra milk protein genes."

But then there is such a terrible shortage of cheese.

Meanwhile back in Scotland, the man from Bayer: "admitted that at some stage the big-six had to start getting a return from Europe for their investment in GM, or switch attention completely to developing countries. He said: "It is possible that we could pull out of Europe."

Scientists have created genetically modified cows whose milk makes it easier and quicker to produce cheese.

Because the milk contains up to a fifth more protein than normal, the cows should also generate more cheese per pint than conventional cattle.

Although GM cows have been used to produce pharmaceutical products in their milk before, this is the first time milk has been manipulated to make better food for the supermarket shelves.

Cheese is made by adding a starter culture, usually rennet, an enzyme scraped from calf stomachs, to vats of milk. This increases the acidity of milk and encourages the growth of bacteria, separating the milk into solid curds and liquid whey. Processing these solid curds by cutting, squeezing, heating and salting creates different cheeses.

Food scientists have shown that small changes in the balance of proteins in milk can have a dramatic change on its cheese-making properties.

Two proteins naturally found in milk are important for making cheese. Adding more kappa-casein protein to milk improves its heat stability while adding more beta-casein speeds up the separation into curds and whey.

A team of researchers from Agbiotechnology in Hamilton, New Zealand, created 11 Friesian "transgenic" cows carrying extra copies of the genes for these proteins.

Nine of the cows produced milk with eight to 20 per cent more beta casein and twice as much kappa casein.

The cows were created by combining GM techniques with the cloning method used to produce Dolly the sheep. Out of 126 attempts, they produced just 11 calf clones, each one carrying the extra milk protein genes. When the cows produced milk, nine had higher than normal levels of milk proteins.

Each cow produced a different amount of protein, even though they were all cloned from the same cell line.

***

2.NEW CIGARETTE LET SMOKERS CHOOSE LEVEL OF NICOTINE

kfmb.com http://www.kfmb.com/topstory13396.html

(01-26-2003) - The first tobacco CEO to acknowledge smoking is addictive is offering a new cigarette made with genetically modified tobacco that lets smokers choose their level of nicotine.

Vector Tobacco Inc. stops short of marketing its Quest cigarettes as a smoking cessation product - a claim that could draw the regulatory attention of the Food and Drug Administration.

The cigarettes are, however, designed to allow smokers to cut back on nicotine, the addictive element in tobacco.

"The purpose of this product is to help people get to a nicotine-free environment, where they can have zero nicotine in their system. Then they can decide what to do from that point forward," said Bennett LeBow, who runs parent company Vector Group Ltd.

The company is spending $15 million on advertising for Quest in seven Mid-Atlantic and Midwest states beginning Monday. It also is funding research at Duke University on how Quest affects smokers' nicotine intake and urge to smoke.

"Quest is an intriguing curiosity," said Kenneth Warner, a public health professor and director of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network, which studies smoking and health. "Whether it could be used by smokers to consciously wean themselves off smoking remains to be seen but is worthy of study."

LeBow's other tobacco company, Mebane-based Liggett Group, was the first to break ranks with Big Tobacco and settle smoking-related litigation in 1996. LeBow was the first tobacco CEO to acknowledge that smoking is addictive and causes serious health problems.

As long as Vector doesn't claim Quest is a smoking-cessation product, a 2000 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars the FDA from regulating the tobacco industry allows the cigarette onto the market without the extensive testing required of approved stop-smoking products.

Although the company says Quest contains only trace amounts of nicotine, it makes no claims that the cigarette reduces carbon monoxide or the chemicals that increase the risk of cancer. Smoking also is linked to heart disease, emphysema and birth defects.

Cigarette makers have been challenged on some of their claims, including the use of "light" in marketing some cigarettes, which smokers have complained mislead them to believe the cigarettes were less harmful.

A class-action lawsuit now in court in Illinois accuses the maker of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights of misleading customers to that end. A lawyer for the company argues that the cigarette-maker never meant people to believe that smoking "light" cigarettes would be less harmful than smoking regular ones.

Quest takes a different approach. It allows smokers to choose their nicotine content: Quest 1 has 17 percent less nicotine than an average light cigarette, the company said. Quest 2 has 58 percent less nicotine, and Quest 3 is virtually nicotine-free.

Duke University nicotine researcher Dr. Jed Rose is testing users of Quest and the nicotine patch with a group using Quest alone. Rose, the co-inventor of the nicotine patch who is director of Duke's Nicotine Research Program, said subjects have been able to step down their nicotine intake but have been unable to put down their Quest 3 smokes within six weeks.

John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, an anti-tobacco health organization in Washington, D.C., questioned why people would buy the cigarette.

"The reason that most people smoke is that they want their nicotine. They smoke solely because they want that nicotine kick," Banzhaf said.

LeBow said human studies are underway to prove smoking Omni reduces the risk of cancer. Depending on test results and customer acceptance, Vector could one day market a cigarette that features both reduced carcinogens and virtually no nicotine, he said.

The seven states where Quest is being sold are New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, the company said.

REPRESENTATIVES of the big-six companies involved with genetically modified crops were on a charm offensive in Scotland this week, meeting MSPs, scientists and journalists.

Paul Rylott, of Bayer CropScience and the chairman of the recently-formed Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC), did not put it quite like that.

He told journalists that the industry - as in his company, BASF, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta - had recognised 18 months ago that the battle for GM was being lost.

Actual battlefields in Scotland include the Black Isle, Daviot in Aberdeenshire and Newport on Tay, where the controversial GM crop trials are taking place.

There was also the wider battle of public opinion and a mainly-hostile media.

Rylott said that the big-six had formed ABC to "address misconceptions", meet the public and answer questions.

Contact with the public had been an eye-opener, he said, even though most research shows that price is the over-riding factor for food, not whether it is GM or organic.

But the effect of anti-GM campaigning and media hostility was apparent. Asked to name their own concerns about food, GM came near the bottom of any consumer list. But if they were given a list to put in order, GM came near the top.

Rylott said that ABC had been formed to "put a public face to the biotech industry" and to dispel some of the myths.

He said: "We do not claim that biotechnology is the answer to all farming's problems. It's another tool in the box.

"It should not be distinct from any other tool - farmers should have the choice of GM, organic or conventional. They, and we, do not have that choice now."

He and his colleagues believe, in spite of continued strenuous opposition to crop trials and criticism of the Executive and the UK government for allowing them, that GM crops and food will eventually be accepted.

Dr Colin Merritt, a technical development manager with Monsanto, told journalists: "In ten years time, we will look back and say, 'that was a strange phase we went through.'"

GM crops, he agreed, are not the answer to world farming's problems. But they have a part to play, he argued, and "fear of the unknown melts away when farmers get a crop in the field".

About 50 per cent of world soya and more than 30 per cent of world cotton is now GM, as well as much of the oilseed rape. The US, Canada, China and India all grow large, and increasing, areas of GM crops.

But resistance to the technology continues in the European Union, with several other member states as anti as the UK.

Julian Little, of Bayer CropScience, said that the argument had changed: from whether GM technology is a good thing to what happens when the crop is grown commercially. He said: "It's not now about whether it's safe in itself, but how you manage it. That's a major shift."

But he admitted that at some stage the big-six had to start getting a return from Europe for their investment in GM, or switch attention completely to developing countries. He said: "It is possible that we could pull out of Europe."